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How is distance affecting your thinking?

By | David Klaasen | Helping You Create Clarity, Inspire Your People & Drive Performance | Retain your best people | Changing Management Mindsets and Behaviour | Practical Behaviour Analytics

Your perception of distance has a profound effect on your thinking and decision making. When a tragedy occurs in a particular neighbourhood people often say we didn’t expect that ‘here’. We are so used to hearing about awful things happening in distant places but when it happens in our own neighbourhood we are far more shocked. This is very understandable. The closer an incident is to us the more we feel that it could have happened to us. However, it is interesting how we unconsciously transfer this thinking to abstract concepts like time and ownership, and it can create the Thinking Trap of Distance.

Thinking Traps are our unconscious biases. Behavioural and Neuroscientists have been studying these cognitive quirks that influence how we see the world for many years. It is thought that they are part of our genetic or cultural heritage because they are so hard-wired into our brains. Your biases or Thinking Traps are continuously influencing your thinking and this means every conversation you have and every decision you make. Mostly your biases are a convenient shortcut to making quick and efficient judgements because your brain is always seeking ways to conserve precious thinking space. However, if left unchecked these biases can become dangerous thinking traps that can blind you to important new information or alternative options when making a decision.

This is the fourth article in a mini-series that explores the SEEDS® Model developed by Dr. David Rock and his colleagues at the Neuroleadership Institute.  For a brief overview of the model, click here. For other articles in the series check out my blog.

D is for Distance

The D in the SEEDS model is for Distance. This can be summed up in the statement “Nearer is more important than far away”. It often leads to short-term thinking rather than long-term investment and explains why so many businesses find it difficult to articulate a long-term vision.

The closeness of ownership endows our possessions with greater value. This is called the ‘Endowment Effect’ and it kicks in when we own something. The effect means that we rapidly begin to believe that others will pay more for something than we ourselves paid for it. This can happen as soon as someone is told that they own something. In a famous experiment by Dan Kahneman and his colleagues, they gave people a mug and offered them the opportunity to sell or exchange it for items of equal value (some pens). They found that once ownership was established the participants would only accept double the amount of its value to let it go.  In another study two groups of workers were offered an incentive to achieve a particular target. One group were told that they would get the bonus if they achieved the target. The others were told that they had the bonus already and that it would be taken away if they didn’t achieve the target. The second group worked harder than the first because we have a built-in aversion to loss. The workers in the experiment found it more painful to lose something they already had than to put in sustained effort to achieve something that only might show up in the future. This effect leads many business owners (and house owners) to have an inflated perception of what their business (or house) is actually worth. It also affects the motivation of people who are on an annual bonus. A year often feels too distant to be motivating because so much can happen in the meantime.

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